Mission: Insanity

Chapter 4: Every Note I Ever Wrote

Chapter 4

The door flew open, right on cue. I had barely put one foot in the water. My other leg was resting on the edge of the pool.

"Put your shoes back on and get away from the water," Nathan said. "You know you can't go in."

"Right, because 'infections' and whatever," I used air quotes as I rolled my eyes.

"If you want to get your stitches out, you're going to have to keep them clean, which means staying out of the water."

Nathan and Chelsea had the lucky job of making sure I didn't do anything stupid. I'm not sure if they were assigned it, or were just being my friends. I didn't care enough to ask.

I wasn't in here to swim, but they didn't know that yet. They would realize it in a few minutes. Or a minute, depending on how long the lunch line was today.

"You can't keep ditching us," Chelsea said. "We're trying to help you."

I laughed. "I'm trying to help you guys too. How do you expect to be able to do any mission if you can't even tail a girl on crutches? Consider this practice."

Nathan opened his mouth to respond, but he was beat by someone entering the pool deck from the locker room. Nathan looked at Chelsea and then back to the person who just entered.

"You weren't coming here to swim," he realized.

I smiled. "You can stop me if you want. Go ahead."

Chelsea sighed. "How did you know she would be here?"

I shrugged. "You don't actually want to know the answer to that."

"Yes, I do. I have to know how you get this information and how you keep knowing precisely how to always ditch us," Chelsea said.

I smiled and stood up. "I can't tell you that. Trade secret."

"Brooke?" Mallory asked from across the pool deck. I waved in reply. "Hi! I haven't seen you since you've gotten back. How are you doing?"

I sighed. "Still many stitches. Still many problems."

"That sucks. It really does."

I spotted Nathan and Chelsea leave out of the corner of my eye.

"I'm getting used to it."

"You should not have to get used to pain like this," she replied.

"You're dealing with pain too."

"You can't blame yourself."

"But I do."

"No. Seriously. Ned knew what he was doing. So did the other people. This was so calculated that I'm just happy you survived. That's what he wanted. That's why he went after you."

"He didn't want to leave you," I answered.

"We both knew what we signed up for when the recruiters came around."

"Where did you get recruited?" I attempted to change the subject.

"College. We were doing presentations one day for computer science and I thought they were potential donors, but then later they watched me at my swim meet and approached me about joining. I dropped swim, but Agent Katherine is covering my tuition with organization funds. I'm doing most of my work online now. How about you?"

"I won a national brain-puzzle competition. It was basically all a set up to see who would be good thinkers. I won by a lot, actually. Everyone was shocked."

"Make sense, since you're always able to think four steps ahead of everyone now," Mallory said. "Or at least almost everyone."

Little did she know, but I couldn't tell her that.

"By the way, I really tried to convince them. But if you can't complete the Elitist fitness test checkpoint next week, you lose you title. They can't make exceptions."

"So I'm technically still an Elitist?" I asked.

She nodded. "Unless you can somehow pass, which I don't see how you can do without approval from you doctor to even take the test."

I smiled. It was time for me to think a few steps ahead.

She noted the look on my face.  "Do you need my help?"

I nodded.  "Only if you can keep this on the very down low."

"How come?" she was a little confused.

"Because if the other Elitists get word that I'm planning this, they'll want me to stop.  They'll think it's an unnecessary risk."

"Is it?"

I shook my head.  I couldn't tell her all of the details.  I couldn't tell anyone all of the details.  "I need to keep this title.  Trust me on that."

She nodded.  "You don't even think Kyle would want to help you?"

"I'll tell Kyle if I need to, but if he knew, he would feel the responsibility to talk me out of it."

Mallory smiled.  "You don't think I can talk you out of it?"

"I think you understand why."

"Let's keep this title."